Sonic Hacking Contest 2013

Last Sunday, the winners of the 2013 Sonic Hacking Contest were revealed by judges through a livestream event which has been preserved on Twitch for everyone to watch in the above video. During the two hours it took, the winners were announced for each category, including categories decided upon community members of Retro and SSRG. You can view the results immediately on the Hacking Contest website here, or you can check past the jump for the complete list.

Don’t forget to check out the available entries for yourself, and even for the ones that didn’t win, they still deserve your attention for their hard efforts. Congratulations to everyone involved!

The hacks are done and submitted. With judgment day looming over which hacks will reign supreme, the time has come for you–Yes, YOU!–to play these works. Lovingly called Contest Week, the festivities will begin on Aug. 12 and last through Aug. 18. During this time, everyone is able to download the games on display. However, to actually vote for Community Choice trophies, users must have a validated account on either SSRG or right here on Retro.

According to contest judge and organizer Spanner, a number of regular events are scheduled to take place every day over on the SHC website. These include live streams of the games by MegaGWolf (from 7pm to 9pm British Summer Time, or 2pm to 4pm Eastern for the Americans) and SomecallmeJohnny (1am to 3am BST/9pm to 11pm Eastern.)

A daily podcast will also go live at 9pm BST (4pm EST) and last until 11pm BST (6pm EST.) At the end of the Contest Week, the winners will be announced live via the radio server on the site, so make sure to tune in from 8pm BST (3pm EST) to 11pm BST (6pm EST.)

Other events planned include hacking workshops–of which they’re still seeking ideas for more, so fire Spanner a PM if interested in hosting your own workshop–and a daily hacking contest open to everyone which will ultimately produce a level within Sonic 1. For that last one, a Retro or SSRG account is not required.

Fans can join the discussion about the contest all week via IRC by joining the server located at irc.badnik.net and joining #hackingcontest.

It’s the grand return of the not Monday Links! Seeing how some things happened (or are happening), I guess there’s reason enough to do one of these again. Also I’m bored and don’t want to do the things I should be doing. Anyway, here are some links:

Retro News

Tomorrow is the last day you can add a new entry to the Sonic Hacking Contest 2013, so this is your last chance if you still have something you want to place in the contest! [SHC2013]

Also tomorrow, an update to the Sonic Adventure Generations mod which adds 2 new levels. [Youtube]

Sonic/SEGA News

A whole 15 minutes of gameplay of the Castle of Illusion re-imagining. [SEGAbits]

The ESRB has put up the rating summary for Sonic Lost World explaining why it is rated E10+ revealing incredibly dark generic things villains usually say, obviously various fans overreact about it. [ESRB]

Rev up your disassemblies, it’s that time of the year where aspiring Sonic game hackers get their chance to show off new game ideas once more. Registration for the 2013 Sonic Hacking Contest is now open. In the past, the contest has seen magnificent entries such as the highly-praised Sonic Megamix or the blistering fast (and brutally difficult) Sonic Boom.

Novice hackers of course shouldn’t be so intimidated to enter after seeing names like those, since all it takes is a little creativity to strike gold. Robotnik’s Revenge, anyone?

This year is promised to be the biggest year for the contest according to contest judge SuperEgg.

Yes folks, this year all the stops have been pulled, and media coverage wasn’t an exception. For years, this contest had been only covered by MegaGWolf, but this year is going to be different. Through many hours of research and development, the judges realized that the need to bring attention to this community gem has been lacking, and something needed to be done about it.

I took the initiative and invited one of the ever popularly growing YouTube reveiwer, SomeCallMeJohnny, to play with us during this contest. He will be making a series of videos reviewing the hacks in the contest. Another incentive to make sure your hacks are tip top shape for contest, eh?

Johnny is a cool guy, so be nice. No promises that he won’t bite, cause you never know, the evil Sonic hat could easily possess him again……

With more eyes on the contest than ever before, it’s time to see what all the hackers out there, talented or otherwise, can really do. To submit an entry, vote and comment, you must have a Sonic Retro OR a Sonic Stuff Research Group account that has gone through the respective site’s trial period. Exceptions will be considered, so don’t let this be a deterrent.